Copyright Agency has an agreement with the Copyright Advisory Group for the school sector (CAG) regarding copyright fees payable by schools under the Statutory Education Licence.
CAG represents most Australian schools. There are more than 9,500 schools, more than 4 million students and nearly 300,000 teaching staff.
The agreement sets the fees for January 2023 to December 2025, with an option to extend for a further year until December 2026.
The fees payable are based on a fixed per-student rate of $13 per student per year. The rate is the same for every student, irrespective of factors such as school level, state or sector (government, Catholic or independent). For the government schools, the fees are paid by State education departments (rather than individual schools).
The Statutory Education Licence allows teachers to copy, adapt, share and store content for educational purposes, including for remote learning, without the copyright permissions (clearances) that would otherwise be required. There is information about what teachers can do under the licence here.
Copyright Agency and CAG continue to work on new methods of data collection using modern technologies, with the assistance of the Copyright Tribunal. Data collection from surveys in the school sector stopped in March 2020 due to the pandemic and have not been resumed. Copyright Agency has since collected some high level information from teachers who have completed online questionnaires, to assist with distribution of copyright fees from the school sector to writers, illustrators and publishers.
Not sure if your school is covered?
You can contact your State representative to check: see here.
If you are not covered, please email us.
Copyright Council Q&As for teachers
Click here to download the Copyright Council’s Q&As for teachers.
September 2023